[For those of you who don't know, Sintang in Indonesia where Project Borneo 3D and Willie Smits' new
reforestation project is based, is quite close to Sarawak, Malaysia).

This is particularly relevant to Malaysians and particularly Sarawakians, but also anyone concerned
with deforestation and the indigenous land rights, or Native Customary Rights (NCR) as they are
known in Malaysia.

I have over the past several years made many Malaysian friends including some from various towns and
cities in Sarawak. Lately I have been paying attention to political and environmental issues in the
country, and of particular and quite urgent interest in the context of this forum is Sarawak, which
is having its state election in a couple of weeks.

As many of us here would know, politics, economics and forest management are very closely linked
together, and I believe that almost nowhere is this more true than in Sarawak.

So, I am wondering what people think of the state of politics in Sarawak and how people feel about
the election when it comes to environmental issues. I am happy to contribute links and articles in
this thread in case people need more background etc, but I don't want to push my political views
very hard (I'm not Malaysian yet have stronger political views of Malaysia than some), and
discussions related to politics can become heated easily, so please try to be mindful that people do
hold different views

Dan, thank you for starting this thread topic! This issue deserves far more attention than it ever
receives. Here is an article that came across my wire this afternoon that people may be interested
to read:

It sounds like you are already intimately familiar with the environmental/social state of affairs
under Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud (or simply, 'Taib'), but for those who are not, The Sarawak Report is a website dedicated specifically to
this issue. They have done some very eye-opening reports and exposes. Here is their "About Us" section. They also have
recently developed an "interactive election monitoring initiative" here, which albeit rudimentary, allows users to submit
election reports from around Sarawak. It is important to note the system is *anonymous*, so please
use discretion when reading entries and try to corroborate facts before drawing any final
conclusions. Such systems can be subject to abuse, from all sides.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------The time to act is NOW. For
the orangutans, for the global climate, and for the rural people that have depended on these forests
for generations. Please, help me help them by
watching this brief video, and thank you!

Less than a week before the extremely important Sarawak state election (to be held April 16), the
independent news websites of Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak are again reporting an onslaught
of massive cyberattacks (i.e., DDOS, etc). Regardless of political disagreements or ideologies, the
people of Sarawak deserve to have their voices and opinions heard.

The Sarawak Report, as mentioned previously, has released a number of detailed reports and exposes
on the state of social and environmental affairs under the rule of Chief Minister Taib Mahmud.
These reports seek to illuminate the mechanics of power within the Mahmud family's inner circle.
Their website and the reports contained at (www.sarawakreport.org) have been periodically down due
to the aforementioned DDOS attacks.

As of 11:40AM EST 4/14/2011, it is back up, however many links to the exposes and reports remain
shut down. This is unprecedented. A rudimentary satellite page has been set up here. For my Indonesian colleagues (and other Bahasa
speakers) - a similar temporary website can be found here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------The time to act is NOW. For
the orangutans, for the global climate, and for the rural people that have depended on these forests
for generations. Please, help me help them by
watching this brief video, and thank you!